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Alex Magleby won the 2011 USA 7s Collegiate Rugby Championship, and perhaps
there were a few aside comments – Cal was tired, not Life, no St. Mary’s at
the tournament; maybe they were lucky.

Still, the former USA 7s team captain followed that on by coaching the All
Americans (15s and 7s) and then the USA 7s team starting in March. He
returned to Dartmouth to lead the team to the national D1-AA semifinals in
15s, and now, despite losing four highly-regarded players from last season,
won the CRC again.

In the tournament this past weekend, they were even better than last year.
They crushed a very good Delaware team 31-5, did the same to Maryland 31-7,
shut out Florida, eventual Challenger winners, 28-0. After that it was 35-5
over Wisconsin, a dramatic comeback win over Cal 21-19, when they scored
two converted tries in the final four minutes, and a 24-5 defeat of Arizona
in the final.

True, Arizona lost two of their best players, Peter Tiberio and Trent
Fisher, to injury in that final, but Dartmouth was already up 7-0 when that
happened. The Ivy Leaguers from New Hampshire scored, 170 points and gave
up only 41, 19 of which were from Cal in one game. Other than that match,
they dominated. It wasn’t even close.

They did it, despite having and only one player significantly taller than
5-9, 15s lock and 7s prop Nate Brakeley. The rest of the team was small,
sometimes startlingly so. But they had a little speed, plenty of teamwork,
and a ton of self-belief. They also had a coach who showed that 7s isn’t
just about getting the ball to the fast guy.

“I can’t say enough about the whole team,” said Dartmouth captain Paul
Jarvis, looking back at the semifinal comeback against Cal. “The self
belief that we have that Mags puts in us; the expectation that we’re never
out of it; that someone will make the play and we’ll pick it up; never left
us. I couldn’t be prouder of the guys the way they stuck to it. And Mags is
the best coach I have ever had.”

Jarvis, for his part, was outstanding. Not a big man, he plays big, and was
the central figure in the comeback in the semis. He didn’t make
RUGBYMag.com’s All-Tournament team because there are forwards who are
bigger and more athletic and faster. But if you were looking for a leader
of men, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better one.

“It’s a bit of a running joke, a bunch of short angry men,” added Will
Lehmann about the team’s side. “But I think it’s really a thinking man’s
game, and I think the fact is everyone knows how to use their size to their
best advantage. Obviously, Nate, the big lad, he uses that to a big
advantage. The rest of us, we know how to make it work I guess. Good team
chemistry.”

And the coach makes it happen. A coach who makes it … and this was the
theme in player comments … simple.

“Mags always says do the fundamentals right at pace and it will work out,”
added Will Mueller. “And that’s what we did.”

It’s interesting to note, also, that Dartmouth did not have a long time to
prepare for this tournament. They turned things around in basically two
weeks – maybe nine or ten training sessions. Now, they had been working on
7s in the fall and worked on skills throughout the season, but many coaches
have said the short turnaround time from 15s to 7s is hard. Well, Alexander
Magleby figured it out.

And he figured it out while also dividing his time between Dartmouth and
the USA national team, a job he didn’t take until after he discussed it
with his players.

“He’s very transparent,” Lehmann said of Magleby. “He sat the seniors down
and he told them what the situation was and he’s like. ‘I want to get your
inputs. Do you have a problem with this, how can we make this work?’ I
think everyone responded really positively. We’d said on the side it’s only
a matter of time. We’re blessed to have such a great coach. It’s only a
matter of time before he gets called up to higher honors, so I think that
just made us more tight-knit.”

Dartmouth didn’t get to play Life, as Life were upended 19-12 in the CRC
semis. But they shared some common opponents:

Dartmouth 31 Delaware 5
Life 12 Delaware 5

Dartmouth 21 Cal 19
Life 7 Cal 26

Dartmouth 24 Arizona 5
Life 12 Arizona 19

Dartmouth 35 Wisconsin 5
Life 36 Wisconsin 12

As you can see, in every comparison, Dartmouth recorded a better score,
despite having a smaller, less athletic team with less time to prepare. Not
to knock the outstanding caching at Life, Cal, Arizona, and elsewhere – not
at all – but ask the Dartmouth players and they will give the credit to the
guy on the sidelines.